Last state in the West: Wyoming holds out against Medicaid expansion
Wyoming is one of 10 states in the nation and the only state in the Mountain West that has yet to adopt Medicaid expansion, which refers to expanding Medicaid eligibility to broader swaths of low-income adults.
According to a 2023 Wyoming Department of Health Report, Medicaid expansion in the state would require $17 million to $26 million in state money and expand coverage to about 19,000 Wyomingites. Medicaid expansion efforts have repeatedly failed in the Wyoming Legislature in recent years. Jan Cartwright, board member of Healthy Wyoming, a coalition dedicated to Medicaid expansion in Wyoming, says that expansion would help many of the state’s struggling rural hospitals.
“It stabilizes the health care system itself and provides resources to hospitals that now end up doing a lot of uncompensated care,” Cartwright said. “They would now be able to seek out primary care in appropriate, more affordable settings, but it would also keep them out of the emergency room, where many people end up going because they don’t have access any other way.”
State Sen. Cale Case, a Republican and a proponent of Medicaid expansion, said much of the political opposition comes from public perception of Medicaid as akin to a federal government handout.
“People are very worried about the political consequences of supporting Medicaid. It has a very unpopular rap,” Case said. “I think people miss that it would actually help their communities by keeping their hospitals open.”
John Mansell, an anesthesiologist based in Gillette, opposes Medicaid expansion and says his reason is fiscal, not political. Mansell cited Medicaid’s below-market reimbursement rates for private care providers and worried about the cost burden on health care providers.
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“I think people who think that it will help are not malicious. I just think that they have a normalcy bias that Medicaid has an infinite capacity to cover, and that they won’t actually see a decrease in the commercial coverage,” Mansell said.
Case, Cartwright and other expansion proponents argued that Medicaid’s below-market reimbursement was better than fully unreimbursed care. Cartwright cited studies finding that Medicaid expansion has saved lives.
“So you know, this saves lives. We know it saves lives. We’re starting to have more and more data to that extent. You know, this is really a no-brainer.”
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Cy Neff is a politics reporting fellow based in Wyoming for USA Today. You can reach him at cneff@usatoday.com or on X, formerly known as Twitter, @CyNeffNews
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Medicaid expansion remains unlikely in Wyoming
